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NCAA Tournament: Cincinnati Bearcats Lead Early, Survive Run, Beat Texas 65-59

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This game was a microcosm of this team. They played one great half. Though you can't totally say that the first half was great. Not when you shoot under 40 per cent. But it was followed by an objectively bad second half. One that saw Texas go on a massive, massive run and come close to stealing a win. But in the end UC buckled down in the final five minutes to take the win.

The Bearcats won this game with defense above all. They only surrendered 59 points, held the Longhorns to 35.1 per cent shooting, 35 per cent from three (though the second half three point shooting for the Horns was well north of 50 per cent. UC also forced 11 Texas turnovers.

The larger trend about UC coming into this game, that this team is capible of winning games without making a high percentage of three pointers still stands. UC only shot 18 per cent from three, and won by 6. That would have been unthinkable in January. And that's the thing. The Bearcats aren't playing good basketball anymore in an asthetic sense. But they are playing winning basketball. That's all that I care about right now.

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